by Steve | May 25, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Kathy L. Gilbert
Tiffany Chartier sees beauty in chaos and disease.
As a professional photographer and youth director of CHAOS (Challenge, Honor, Acceptance, Outreach and Serve) at Community of Hope United Methodist Church, Mansfield, Texas, she has created a unique ministry for herself: taking “affirmation” photos of young people starting on their spiritual journey and capturing some of the final moments of people dealing with cancer.
“Photography is a form of ministry for me. It always has been. It is just another avenue of expressing God’s love in a different art form,” she said. She is doing all this while dealing with retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic eye condition that will eventually make her blind. She only has 25 percent of her vision left.
“Because I am going blind I give more freely of the talents God gave me,” she said. “And because I’m going blind I refuse to be stingy with joy.
“Retinitis pigmentosa is a degenerative hereditary eye disease that starts by night vision—loss of night vision—and then slowly steals (like a thief) your peripheral vision so eventually what you see is like looking through a tiny, tiny straw. And eventually it’ll just…all close.”
Chartier said her lack of peripheral vision is not as much of a challenge as you might think because she doesn’t “just take a picture,” she “captures a story.”
Hank and Jan’s story
Hank Wyatt and his wife, Jan, got some bad news in February 2010. The cancer they thought Hank had conquered years ago had come back with a vengeance.
A tumor in his arm lead to the diagnosis of Stage IV lung cancer. His doctor wouldn’t tell them how much time he had left, but Jan did some research and found out the average survival rate was two to four months.
The Wyatts are members of Community of Hope United Methodist Church, and they knew about Chartier’s ministry. They wanted some “happy” photos of themselves for their children and grandchildren.
“I think because her vision is narrowing she focuses in on what is important,” Hank said.
Life has changed a lot in the past year, he said. The photos by Chartier are now hanging in their bedroom.
“We’ve had Christmases and birthday parties and anniversaries that we didn’t know we were going to have. So when those things come to you and you know you are playing the bonus round, you just learn to enjoy every one of ‘em,” he said.
Affirmation stories
“I like to use the talent that God has given me and empower young men and women through photography. And how I do that is with something called ‘affirmation shoots’ and ‘self-confidence shoots,’” Chartier said.
She has the young person list seven positive traits about themselves before she takes their picture.
“I know photography helps people in their spiritual journey because I truly believe that every single person has an awesome, amazing soul that’s probably just allowed life to settle on them and make them a little dusty and rusty,” Chartier said.
The name of her photography company is SGLY (Smile, God Loves You). The mission of her company is to give back.
“And the joy of photography is to be able to take a snapshot of that one emotion and that one particular moment in their life,” she said. “And then they can look back on it and see how far they’ve come in their journey. And it’s beautiful, exciting. Sometimes it’s tragic.”
More than anything, she hopes the photos are helpful.
Chartier’s story
When she was 15 years old, she went with her father to the Retina Foundation of the Southwest, where her father was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa. Chartier was there for moral support; neither she nor her father planned for her to be tested, but the doctors requested it.
She remembers the doctor’s words: “Doug Winters, I need to tell you that yes, you do have retinitis pigmentosa, as well as your daughter. And not only does your daughter have it, she has it worse than you do.”
“We walked out, got into the car. Dad was fumbling around for his keys, put ‘em in the ignition, grabbed the steering wheel and just lost it,” she said. “The only thing he said to me was, ‘I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry.’”
Chartier’s oldest son also has the condition.
When she heard the news, she said she was transported back to that moment when she was 15.
“Except this time I was the one fumbling with the keys and trying to find the steering wheel and trying to get a grip literally—get a grip. And I told him the same words that I’ve been carrying around in my mind and heart for years, ‘I am so sorry.’ That’s exactly what I said to him. I literally became my father in that moment and understood the magnitude of helplessness and responsibility knowing that the only reason why your child has this is because you do.”
Chartier said sometimes she feels angry and sad but she is always reminded to look to God.
“I am 110 percent filled with peace because of Jesus,” she said.
“I try to live every single day with purposeful passion. I try to give that to the youth and to my kids with energy and being positive, and hopefully fulfilling my purpose, which I believe is to be a light for Christ.”
Kathy L. Gilbert is a multimedia reporter for the young adult content team at United Methodist Communications, Nashville, Tennessee. Jess Warnock, a freelance producer in Columbus, Ohio, provided the interview for this story.
by Steve | May 25, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Randolph Cross
His most recent deployment as a United Methodist military chaplain was officer in charge and chaplain of the mortuary for the theater of operations in the Middle East, located in Kuwait.
In short, his task was to oversee the care of the military war dead.
He also gave his full attention to the spiritual and emotional needs of the staff responsible for the bodies of the heroes who would not be alive to see their families and loved ones.
Surrounded by death on an hourly basis, one of his prayers was for someone—anyone—back home in his annual conference, or anywhere in his beloved United Methodist Church to recognize and support him in that hard work.
He dutifully sent in his annual report for persons on extension ministry. His chair of the board of ordained ministry, his bishop, his district superintendent, and his local church all received that information—but no one responded. He fulfilled his mission, did his work, and served as the hands and voice of Christ in a place of death and pain, but his church never said a word.
‘Why doesn’t my church seem to care?’ This scenario plays out daily in hundreds of locations around the world.
Women and men have answered the call to ordained ministry in the United Methodist Church, and have further answered the call to serve as military chaplains, to care as shepherds for military personnel in sometimes very difficult places. Remember that they are sent by United Methodists to represent you, and to offer Christ in powerful and holy ways.
I recently was privileged to travel and meet with our United Methodist chaplains who are assigned to locations in the Pacific. I was overwhelmed by their dedication and their willingness to serve, as well as by their ability to work in a truly ecumenical setting to care for those who stand in defense of our country. And yet they ask, “Why doesn’t my church seem to care?”
Numbers of our chaplains recited similar stories of going home for annual conference, and having people remark that it was probably time for them to come home and do “real” ministry, or of finding either no place to sit, or a place in the back—out of the way, no registration packet, no nametag. Their required annual meeting with the bishop often occurred as a lunch in a room with other extension ministers, or those serving beyond the local church, at which there were times when the bishop was “too busy” with annual conference process to even attend.
They spoke of including in their annual reports items about family illnesses, or struggles or even divorces and no response ever came—except perhaps to remind the divorcing chaplain to follow the procedures laid out by the annual conference for separation or divorce of clergy.
They spoke with pride about representing the United Methodist Church in the military chaplaincy, and they pleaded for the church to send more pastors to take on the mantle of military chaplain.
Yet, the lament was nearly universal—they wished they felt as though their church, in whose name they served, would appear to care at least a small amount about the ministry they were doing, truly extending the ministry of our church and our churches in powerful and excellent ways.
Time for appreciation
Members of the United Methodist Church—it’s time. For our military chaplains, but also for thousands of United Methodist elders and deacons in extension ministries and ministries beyond the local church, it is time for us to show our care in a consistent, supportive, and present manner.
Bishops and superintendents: Find out the names, ministries and settings where members of your conference are appointed and serving, and be in contact with them at least a couple of times per year. Let them know you hold them in prayer, and that you are interested in their lives and ministry. When they come home on leave or for other reasons, find ways to introduce them to your districts, or gather clergy to meet with them.
Annual conferences: Make room, and even find a place of honor for these important partners in our ministry. They feel like fish out of water already, so help them feel more at home, recognize them on the floor of conference and make sure they have access to the journals and other items of news and information from your conference.
Local churches: Adopt a chaplain from your conference, in a similar way to adopting a missionary. Get to know them and their families, and where they are deployed, and pray for them regularly, and most importantly—communicate with them through letters, e-mails, cards and any other way you can connect, and keep that “connection” solid and functional.
The clergy who serve in extension ministry and ministry beyond the local church are gifts of God to us and to our church as a whole. Take the time to appreciate their worth and their work, and let’s keep the connectional church of United Methodists strong. They deserve it, and need it—and so do you.
Randolph Cross is assistant general secretary for supervision and accountability, division of ordained ministry, United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry.
by Steve | May 25, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Andrew C. Thompson
Does the United Methodist Church have a future?
Pastors and laypeople anxiously ask that question as they look at troubling signs of the church’s decline in the United States. The UM Church is growing in other parts of the world, but statistics on the American church suggest that we have real problems that need addressing. Whether it’s the drop in numbers of young adult clergy or the steady falloff in total church membership over the past few decades, evidence of a shrinking denomination is interpreted by most people as a sign that we need to do some serious self-evaluation to find out what is wrong and how we can address the church’s ills.
Some people point out that no denomination is an end in itself.
The Methodists are only useful as a church body insofar as they are making disciples of Jesus Christ (and not just members of a local United Methodist church!). That’s surely true. So the real question for us is whether the UM Church can still be a part of the larger body of Christ that makes faithful disciples of Jesus—men and women who worship faithfully, experience transformation through grace, and are moved to go into the world as witnesses to the gospel.
If so, the church’s future is clear! And if not, its future is sealed.
As a church rooted in the Wesleyan tradition, the UM Church has a special calling to an evangelistic witness that proclaims God’s transforming grace for all people. Back when Methodism was a movement within the Church of England, John Wesley described this calling as spreading scriptural holiness over the land and reforming the larger church. Today, our church describes that same mission by saying we are called “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” Either way, the people called Methodists have always believed that God has a special calling for us to receive and be remolded by his grace so that we can be empowered to go forth and offer it to hurting people in a broken world. It is a calling for each of us as individuals, as well as for all of us collectively.
Our path to the future depends on our willingness to live vigorously into that calling in our own day and age.
Ancient paths
A profound moment happens in the book of Jeremiah when Israel’s enemies are at the gate and the future looks bleak. Any number of strategies have been tried by the kings of Judah to avoid destruction by Babylon and maintain Judah’s independence.
Shifting political alliances, military action, diplomatic negotiation, and the worship of foreign gods—they have all failed and the people are desperate. The word of God given to Jeremiah in the middle of this predicament is surprising, because it literally offers nothing new. Instead, Jeremiah says: “Thus says the Lord: Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls” (Jeremiah 6:16).
No human scheming will work, God says. There is only one way forward and it is the way of covenant faithfulness with God.
The “ancient paths” are the paths Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob walked, together with their families, as they trusted that God would make of them a great people. They are the ways of Moses and the Hebrews as they followed God through 40 years in the wilderness. They are the ways pursued by Ruth as she sought refuge under the mercy of Israel’s law and by Esther as she risked life and limb to save God’s people. And they are the paths trod by David, who, though he often fell short, always turned back to God in repentance and was called a man after God’s own heart.
As Jeremiah puts it, God’s people shouldn’t just look and ask for the ancient paths of faithfulness; they must also walk in those ways. The renewal of the people of God requires both discernment and a collective commitment to action. The word of God promises that those who respond in faith will be empowered to act in faith. And it calls us toward dedication to a whole way of life.
Reclaiming passion
Recent years have seen a number of books by prominent Methodist pastors and theologians trying to seek out those ancient paths for the United Methodist Church. Some of these books have been centered on specific issues such as doctrine or church unity. Others have looked more broadly at the Methodist identity of the church and the church’s calling in ministry. The names of their authors represent some of the best leaders in the church, people like William H. Willimon, William J. Abraham, Scott J. Jones, William B. Lawrence, Reuben Job, and others.
Together, their efforts have gone a long way toward providing a picture of the UM Church’s future that is hopeful. It’s also a picture that reflects Jeremiah’s prophecy about ancient paths in the sense that their vision is largely Wesleyan. More and more, the best pastors and teachers in the church are imagining how the church’s mission and ministry might reclaim—for our time and place—the original passion of John and Charles Wesley and the early Methodists as they carried the good news down the highways and byways of the British Isles.
Doug Meeks, a United Methodist elder and theologian, asked an annual conference session not long ago, “Why in the world would you want to be a Methodist if you’re not Wesleyan?” That’s a great question! It strikes at the heart of our church’s self-understanding. If the calling on the first Methodists came through the work and ministry of John and Charles Wesley and their companions, then we know that the Holy Spirit raised them up for special purposes. Their sermons, hymns, letters, journals, and ministry remain important because they show us a compelling way to understand the call of Jesus on our lives. They offer us a pattern of discipleship. Take away the Wesleyan character of the church and what is left? Just a big, lumbering Protestant denomination without a clear sense of why it exists.
So it seems clear: Any talk of a future for the United Methodist Church has to be talk of a Wesleyan future.
Understanding my generation
There is one thing that is lacking in recent books on Wesleyan renewal in the church, though: the voice of a younger generation, United Methodists who fall into the Generation X category—men and women born between 1961 and 1981. Like our older counterparts, we too want to find the ancient paths of faithfulness. And like them, we understand those paths to be Wesleyan.
But wait. Why is a Generation X perspective important, anyway? And what makes it different?
Well, for one, there’s the age range of Generation X. At the time of this writing, Gen Xers range in age from their late 20s to their late 40s. They are the age group to which the church is increasingly looking for leadership. As pastors, teachers, youth ministers, writers, missionaries, and plain ol’ disciples, their work is vital to a church that needs the energy and vision of younger adults.
But Gen Xers also have a unique perspective to share as well. We came of age in a time when it seemed like the world around us was losing its stability. As the Cold War’s decline sped up the globalization of the market economy and technological change in daily life ramped up to warp speed, Gen X children of the 1970s and 1980s grew up in an environment where fewer and fewer of the old rules applied.
Jeff Gordinier talks about this shared experience in X Saves the World, a humorous and insightful look at the problems and possibilities facing Generation X. “We come from a lost world,” he writes, “and much of what defines us is our ambivalent stuckness between a hunger for the new and an attachment to the old.” Gordinier sees nostalgia for a vanishing world and the increasing pace of change as the reasons behind Generation X’s most universally recognized traits: a strong sense of irony and an unwillingness to be overly idealistic.
“Every generation gets a taste of that conflict, of course,” Gordinier says about adults’ tendency to look back wistfully on the world of their youth, “but the speed of change these days is forcing Gen X into a state of constant diligence.” Having a grounded existence and a strong sense of place used to be taken for granted across the culture. For Gen Xers, though, it was an ever-diminishing reality throughout their childhood and adolescence.
Popular culture became ubiquitous during the childhood of Generation X as the great societal influence. Where once a politician or a pastor or even an author or scholar might have been the revered authority, now it was MTV. Even more, the very media used to disseminate pop culture and facilitate communication quickly came to dominate huge aspects of our lives. (After all, who now thinks anything strange of a family where each member has his or her own bedroom TV, cell phone, laptop computer, and iPod?) We all became individuals—every one of us—but Gen Xers experienced this societal shift during our most formative years. We saw enough of the old world to long for it, but we also came to be tantalized by the promise of the ever-changing new. We were taught at an early age to accept that life always means life out of balance.
In a perceptive look at Generation X spirituality entitled Virtual Faith, Tom Beaudoin points out that Gen Xers “were the first American generation in at least a century to lack a common cause. Previous generations had the Vietnam War, World War II, the Great Depression, and World War I as rallying points.” We might add other great historical moments of the last century to his list: the cultural “revolutions” of the 1960s (rock ‘n’ roll, feminist, sexual), the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the beginning of the Cold War in the 1940s and 1950s, and even the great social movements of the early twentieth century (temperance, women’s suffrage, labor). But if anything, that just makes Generation X’s lack of a unifying cause all the more glaring. As Beaudoin puts it, “Generation X reached adulthood in the absence of a theme, and even with a theme of absence.”
In society at large, we had no common cause. What we had, instead, was the common experience of life as increasingly less concrete, increasingly more detached.
You might think that many of the changes witnessed by Gen X children would lead to a happier life. Technology making life easier and more fun? Greater access to affordable and abundant consumer goods? An adolescence without the looming prospect of a military draft? If earlier generations had seen all that in their crystal balls they might have said it looked like a dream come true. But in fact all the ways that the world was changing created a profound sense of alienation and anxiety. Everyone in the culture was going through the same shifts, of course, but not everyone was going through them when they were eight, twelve, or fifteen years old. Technology makes some aspects of life easier. But it also makes life dramatically more individualized. It shifts us from the concrete to the virtual. Even more, it undermines the stability of real, authentic community. If—as Christians believe—we are literally created to love God and love one another in the community called church, then all those seismic shifts of contemporary life make it more difficult to fulfill the very purpose given to us in Jesus Christ. He calls us to reconciliation, but life today moves toward ever more alienation.
That is Generation X’s experience.
None of it automatically makes Gen Xers more qualified to speak to the church’s future than any other age group. But it does mean that Gen Xers have had a unique firsthand experience with the emergence of the very forces that have unsettled contemporary life. Gen X Christians have a deep hunger for authentic community and the possibility of lifelong growth in grace exactly because our own childhood witnessed the emergence of a world where those things have become more and more difficult to achieve.
Human hunger
Sometimes it seems as if our culture is trying to create a product to meet every possible human hunger. It tries desperately to hold our attention with a constant bombardment of images and products and new ways to feel happy.
But we’ve got a deeper hunger the culture can never satiate.
It’s a hunger given to us by God: to be healed of our broken spirits and alienated lives, and to grow in love with Jesus and the friends he gives us in his church. It is a hunger to find our identities in the community of the baptized, worshiping and living in faithfulness to God.
The vision for tomorrow’s church must feature a church where our very identity as Christian disciples will never be separated from the community God calls us to join—for we know that we can only travel the way of salvation together, brothers and sisters called by Jesus to be his friends and to grow in his grace, even as we share his good news with the world.
Such a church will learn to be in practice what Jesus calls it to be in his teaching: the light of the world, the city on a hill (Matthew 5:14). It will be a church where each of us—“like living stones”—will be shaped together into the spiritual house that serves as the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. It’s a house known as God’s own people, and when it is built as God intends, all those who have been fitted into it will be brought out of darkness and into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2).
Tomorrow’s church can be a disciplined community where the followers of Jesus are maturing in faith as they watch over one another in love. Tomorrow’s church can be a community of worship where God’s people gather to hear the word preached and receive the holy gifts of bread and wine. Tomorrow’s church can be a community of missional urgency where believers respond enthusiastically to the call of the Holy Spirit to go and bear the gospel to the world in joy. Tomorrow’s church can be a holistic community where the fragile creation that God calls good is seen and treasured for the gift that it is. Tomorrow’s church can be a community of redemption where the least and the last and the lost of this world find hospitality and belonging—whether they are the poor of a distant land or the forgotten teenagers and young adults among us.
The time is ripe for the church to hear a vision from our generation. At the same time, that vision is not possible apart from our own formation as Methodist women and men who have been led toward maturity by our elders in the UM Church. So as we all stand at the crossroads together and seek where the good way lies, we too want to find those ancient paths—Wesleyan paths!—that others have sought as they’ve written about the renewal of our church.
The church is at a crossroads. But we firmly believe that God is speaking to us through the words of Jeremiah when he says, “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope” (Jeremiah 29: 11).
If that’s true, then we have every reason to rejoice!
Andrew C. Thompson is the editor of Generation Rising: A Future with Hope for The United Methodist Church (Abingdon 2011). This essay was excerpted from Generation Rising and is used by permission.
Thompson is writer of the popular “Gen-X Rising” column in the United Methodist Reporter and online at genxring.com. An elder in the Arkansas Annual Conference, he pastored churches in Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Carolina. Beginning in the fall of 2011, he will teach Wesleyan theology at Memphis Theological Seminary in Memphis, Tennessee.
by Steve | May 25, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Stephen Seamands
“Closed Thursday for Ascension Day”—the handwritten sign affixed to the front door of Nolt’s Bulk Food Store took me completely by surprise. My wife, Carol, and I, along with another couple, were enjoying a relaxing day trip about 50 miles from our home. We were in the Southern Fork area of Casey County, Kentucky, where a community of more than 300 “Old Order” Mennonites have lived since 1976. One of more than 20 Mennonite owned businesses, Nolt’s is known for its canned goods, homemade jams, jellies and breads, fresh spices and herbs, and handmade items like soap and hats. That’s why we had stopped at the store and we certainly weren’t disappointed. But who would have guessed anyone here in a rural community in Kentucky would close a store to observe Ascension Day. Most Protestant Christians in North America have never even heard of it.
Commemorating Christ’s ascension to heaven, Ascension Day (also known as the Feast of the Ascension) occurs each year on the Thursday forty days after Easter. Liturgically minded Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican Christians observe it faithfully. For devout Roman Catholics, it’s one of the six holy days of the Christian year where mass is mandatory. In doing research, I discovered that Anabaptist groups such as the Mennonites, also have a long history of observing and holding special worship services on Ascension Day. That’s why there was a sign on Nolt’s front door announcing the store would be closed on Thursday.
No doubt, the New Testament writers would be pleased. They believed the ascension of Christ was extremely important and spoke of it often in their preaching. In fact, the Old Testament verse quoted or alluded to in the New Testament more than any other is a verse directly related to it. When I ask pastors and Christian leaders to name that verse, most of them scratch their heads. In case you are wondering, it’s Psalm 110:1: “The Lord says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’” According to New Testament scholar, D.M. Hay, that verse is referred to in the New Testament a total of 23 times.
However, it’s not the Old Testament verse most of us would have chosen, is it? So why do they keep coming back to this particular verse and why does the ascension play such an important part in New Testament teaching and preaching? Actually, there are two major reasons.
First and foremost, they wanted to proclaim something crucially important about Jesus. Not only had he been raised from the dead, he had also been exalted to God’s right hand and enthroned as King. His time of humiliation and death was over, and with the ascension, so too were his resurrection appearances. The ascension therefore signaled a decisive transition. His early ministry is complete; his heavenly ministry has begun. As the writer of Hebrews puts it, “When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven” (Hebrews 1:3).
Psalm 110:1 was understood by devout Jews at the time of Christ to refer not only to Israel’s past Davidic kings, but also to the messiah who was to come. Convinced Jesus was that messiah, the early Christians therefore boldly applied it directly to him. After his earthly ministry, they proclaimed, Messiah Jesus, Son of God and Risen Lord, ascended and returned to his Lord and Father in heaven, who said to him, “Sit at my right hand until I make all your enemies your footstool.”
The New Testament writers therefore keep returning to Psalm 110:1 in order to proclaim the resurrected Christ’s exaltation to the place of honor at God’s right hand and his installation and enthronement as King. As Paul sums it up, God’s power “raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms. Now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else . . . God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church” (Ephesians 1:20-22).
Celebrating and proclaiming the ascension is therefore crucial if we are to fully and properly exalt Christ. Jesus is not only risen but reigning, not only alive but sovereign, not only central but supreme. Moreover, as theologian Douglas Farrow demonstrates, whenever we fail to proclaim Christ as ascended, enthroned, and exalted, something else—our personal agendas, the world’s agendas, the church’s agendas—moves in to fill the vacuum. Mark it down, when we fail to exalt and enthrone Jesus, something or someone else inevitably assumes the throne.
The early Christians proclaimed the ascension, then, in order to say something crucial about Christ. But they also proclaimed it in order to say something crucial about themselves and the nature of their life in Christ. Having professed faith in Christ and confessed Jesus as Lord, they believed they had been joined to Christ and, as Paul repeatedly declared, were now “in Christ.” The major movements of Christ’s life were now movements they were caught up in too.
Paul spells this out in his letter to the Ephesians. We were “dead because of our sins” (Ephesians 2:5), he says, but we have been made alive through faith in Christ. Then he goes on: “He raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus” (2:6). Not only then has Christ been exalted and seated at the Father’s right hand, but because we are in Christ,
Paul says we are there too! He says the same thing in his letter to the Colossians: “Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand” (Colossians 3:1). We have died to this life, Paul insists, and our “real life is hidden with Christ in God” (3:3).
That, then, is the second reason the New Testament writers keep coming back to Psalm 110:1. They believed that not only was Jesus seated on the throne at God’s right hand, but since they were now joined to him, they too were destined and invited to sit with him on the throne (cf. Revelation 3:21).
Unfortunately, there are scores of Christians who have little or no awareness of this. Consequently, they never learn to live in Christ from the seated-on-the-throne position that’s theirs. No doubt we can be “so heavenly minded we’re no earthly good.” But according to the New Testament, if we are to be any earthly good we must be heavenly minded. That’s why focusing upon the fact and the significance of Christ’s ascension is so essential. In his book The Holiest of All, spiritual writer Andrew Murray maintains, “The knowledge of Jesus as having entered heaven for us, and taken us into union with Himself into a heavenly life is what will deliver the Christian from all that is low and feeble, and lift [us] into a life of joy and strength.”
But you may be wondering, what practical implications does Christ’s ascension really have for our lives as Christians? What difference does it really make for us each day? I could mention several, but let me simply focus on one.
Holy of Holies presence
In describing Christ’s ascension, Luke says Jesus was “taken up into a cloud” and he was “rising into heaven” (Acts 1:9-10 NLT). The cloud, most scholars agree, is reminiscent of the cloud, which descended upon the Tabernacle constructed by Moses and the people in the wilderness (Exodus 40:34) and the Temple built by Solomon (1 Kings 8:10-11). With the cloud came the glory—the shekinah—the manifest presence of God. “Thus, to enter it, was to go into the holy of holies, the immediate presence of the Lord,” writes theologian Peter Toon in The Ascension of Our Lord.
Heaven, the dwelling place of God in creation, is also closely associated in scripture with the fullness of the divine presence. Notice how the writer of Hebrews links the two together: “He entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence” (Hebrews 9:24). Heaven, then, is that place which is totally pervaded by God’s glory. In Received Up into Glory, K.C. Thompson puts it like this, “What makes heaven Heaven is the immediate and perceptible presence of God.”
“He ascended into heaven” the Apostles’ Creed says. That means the risen Jesus has returned to the place of the fullness of God’s presence. When he became incarnate, the eternal Son voluntarily laid that aside (Philippians 2:5-11) and limited himself to an awareness and experience of God’s presence through human faculties and a human consciousness. The ascension means that the period of self-renunciation and self-limitation has come to an end. In his classic work He Ascended Into Heaven, theologian J.G. Davies states that the eternal Son’s “consciousness of absolute unity and communion with the Father, which in varying manners and degrees, most notably shown in the cry of dereliction on the Cross, had been limited by the flesh, was fully restored.”
The fact that he ascended into heaven also means that Jesus is no longer limited by space and time, as he was during his earthly life when he could only be in one place at one time. As New Testament scholar and theologian N.T. Wright points out in Surprised by Hope, in biblical cosmology, heaven and earth are not two locations within the same spatial continuum, rather they are dimensions of God’s creation. And since heaven relates to earth tangentially, the one who is in heaven can be present everywhere at once on earth. The ascension therefore, Wright concludes, “means that Jesus is available, accessible, without people having to travel to a particular spot on earth to find him.”
He ascended into heaven—that’s what it meant for Jesus. What then does it mean for those who are in Christ and have been raised up and seated with him in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 2:6)? It means that while we are on earth, through the Holy Spirit we’re “there” in heaven with him. His prayer, “Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am” (John 17:24 NLT ) is fulfilled in part even now. In his devotional book This Day with the Master, biblical scholar and evangelist Dennis Kinlaw concludes, “Through his grace, God has made it possible for me to live in His presence every moment, so that heaven actually begins for me right now in time and space.” Think of it, even now while we’re here we’re also there with him!
What’s more, the ascension means that because Christ is in heaven, he’s here—at all times and in all places—on earth with us. When Jesus commissioned his disciples just before he ascended he told them not to forget that: “And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20 italics mine). Recognizing and living according to his promised presence is a tremendous spiritual blessing and asset. Jesus is always with us in actual presence. Because we are with him in heaven and he is with us on earth, that means we can live every moment of our lives in the holy of holies presence of God.
When God told Moses it was time to break camp at Mt. Sinai and go up to Canaan, Moses complained, “You have been telling me, ‘Take these people up to the Promised Land.’ But you haven’t told me whom you will send with me” (Exodus 33:12 NLT). So God gave Moses a wonderful promise: “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (Exodus 33:14).
Now, however, because Jesus is ascended, that promise is more profoundly true and significant for us than it was for Moses. For he lived under the Old Covenant, where only once a year the high priest was allowed to enter the holy of holies, the very presence of God. But we live under the New Covenant, where Jesus, our great high priest, has opened up a new and living way. Now we have access to the holy of holies; we can live in the very presence of God every moment of every day.
To be sure, we may not be consciously aware of God or have a tangible sense of God’s manifest presence. But that doesn’t change the fact that we are seated in the heavenly realms with Christ and he is always with us. In fact, he’s as near to us right now as he was to John, when the beloved apostle laid his head on his breast during the Last Supper.
So we don’t ever have to wonder where Christ is. We don’t have to beg him to come on the scene. He is present with us even when he seems most absent. No matter how unholy the situation we may seem to be in, we can be confident that he’s with us. We are in the holy of holies with him! In The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer sums it up well: “Ransomed men and women need no longer pause in fear to enter the Holy of Holies. God wills that we should push on into His presence and live our whole life there. This is to be known to us in conscious experience. It is more than a doctrine to be held; it is a life to be enjoyed every moment of every day.”
If only we could seize hold of this truth and reality! We are with Christ and Christ is with us. It would transform our lives, our ministries and our congregations. The Psalmist declares, “I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure…You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand” (Psalm 16: 8-9, 11).
We must learn, then, like the Psalmist, to “set the Lord always before us” and like Brother Lawrence to “practice the presence of God.” We must learn to pay attention to God and to pray with St. Patrick, “Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me.” Yet never forget, the ascension of Christ is the foundation and the guarantee of his constant presence with us. In this event, as Orthodox theologian Patrick Reardon states, “heaven and earth are joined forever.” And because God has so joined them together, nothing can ever put them asunder.
Your church may not hold special services on Ascension Day this year, but we all need to remember, celebrate and give thanks for Christ’s ascension. Because Jesus ascended into heaven, we can ascend there too—not just someday, but today and everyday. Because he ascended, he is always with us and we are with him. So let us lift up our hearts. In his presence is fullness of joy.
Stephen Seamands is Professor of Christian Doctrine at Asbury Theological Seminary. This article is from his forthcoming book, Give Them Christ: Preaching His Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension and Return, to be published by InterVarsity Press.
by Steve | Apr 1, 2011 | Magazine Articles
After more than four decades of United Methodism’s membership decline, the 2008 General Conference created a committee of 20 church leaders to study the denomination and its churches, and to propose interventions at each level of the Church’s life. In late 2010, the committee published a “Call to Action” that is now widely discussed among United Methodists. The report addresses concerns ranging from the low “vitality” of local churches to the overall structure of the denomination.
Based on the findings of a research team, the Call to Action report identifies five “drivers” behind the “vitality” of the most “vital” local churches:
1. Traditional and contemporary services
2. More small groups
3. More programs for children and youth
4. Pastors who lead planning and preach inspiringly
5. Elevate more attendees into leadership roles.
The Call proposes making pastors and bishops more “accountable” for producing vital congregations, and it proposes a restructure of the denomination’s boards and agencies.
Because of his extensive expertise, we asked Dr. George G. Hunter III, author of The Apostolic Congregation: Church Growth Reconceived for a New Generation and Distinguished Professor of Evangelism and Church Growth at Asbury Theological Seminary, to interact with the report of the Call to Action. Hunter recently delivered the Denman Lectures, “The Recovery of a Contagious Wesleyan Movement,” at the 2011 Congress on Evangelism.
We asked for responses to Dr. Hunter’s analysis from distinguished thinkers and leaders representing various perspectives within United Methodism—the Rev. Drs. Steve Wende, Kent Millard, Joy Moore, and Terry Teykl.
As a separate analysis, we also asked the well-known church vitality expert Lyle Schaller to wrestle with the Call to Action. His thoughts are found on page 18.
—The editor
A serious conversation
By George G. Hunter III
Thank God for the “Call to Action!” It has catalyzed the first serious conversation about the denomination’s future in many years. I thank Good News magazine for encouraging the conversation.
My reflection on the report of the Call to Action proceeds from my convictions that United Methodism should be appropriately rooted in John Wesley’s theological vision and, as in early Methodism, our churches should be local missional movements more than conventional parishes. A Methodist missional life is expressed as a lay movement, that reaches, loves, and forms people through small groups, in local movements that enter their communities to make new disciples and work for God’s will to be done on earth.
Compared to the missional Christianity reflected in the New Testament, classical Methodism shared the bias of John Wesley, and Soren Kierkegaard, that the approach of Europe’s institutional national churches was not normal Christianity. Instead, it is domesticated Christianity, with much of the heart and more of the vertebrate removed, and the versions historically imported from Europe—America’s “mainline” churches—are almost as innocuous. For this reason, our denomination’s 20th century move to become much less Methodist and much more mainline, and much less of a movement and much more of an institution, has proven to be a tragic mistake.
The Call’s Confessions
While I will address the Call’s proposed interventions for our denomination, I’d like to begin with the Call’s Two Great (unspoken) Confessions.
First, the committee’s denominational leaders have quietly departed from their 20th century predecessors’ frequent insistence that the local churches exist for “the connection.” Now, apparently, the connection exists for the churches, after all.
Second, the document admits, de facto, that United Methodist leaders who contended in the 1970s and 1980s that membership decline was not really a problem were dead wrong. Those leaders welcomed decline. Fewer members, they said, would make us a better church. Quantity and quality, they assured us, are inversely related; so, with less quantity, we’d have more quality, more vitality, greater faithfulness and effectiveness.
Now, 40 years later, we face the brute fact that the loss of quantity has not produced greater quality and vitality. So, we have learned something in the last 40 years: Hear ye, Hear ye! Declining churches are less “vital” churches!
At several levels, the Call to Action, at last, transcends decades of entrenched denial, and it proposes a “revitalized” denomination.
The committee’s proposal to revamp the denomination’s boards and agencies is an idea past due. However, one proposal may not deliver what is hoped for. The Call to Action recommends merging our boards and agencies into fewer, and smaller, units. The problem is that we have already tried that—in 1972. As one example, the boards of education, evangelism, lay life and work, and other units like worship and stewardship and men’s work were merged into a conglomerate board of discipleship with much smaller staffs for those concerns. Since then, the denomination has been declining in quantity and quality. We have no reason to believe that consolidating into smaller boards yet again would produce a very different outcome.
Another proposal in the Call is useful, but could be expanded. The Call recommends that we form smaller “competency-based” boards. I served on the staff of the old Methodist Board of Evangelism from 1965 to 1972 and returned five years later to lead the program Section on Evangelism within the Board of Discipleship. The Board of Evangelism, whatever its shortcomings, had experts in evangelism; the Board of Discipleship, whatever its virtues, deployed board members to program sections without regard to subject-expertise.
Several other executives of program sections reported that their board members did not know enough about their section’s specialty to appraise, much less advise, the section’s work. So the call for competency-based boards makes great sense.
But this hopeful proposal raises a necessary question: Would it make sense to also select competency-based board staffs, and denominational executives, and bishops? If competency became priority at every level, the Church would be better positioned for a desirable future.
What triggers vitality?
The Call’s proposals for “vitalizing” local churches especially deserve reflection:
1. Programs vs. ministries. The Call reports that vital churches have more programs for children and youth than less vital churches do. That is undoubtedly true, but it invites some tweaking. Ministries with children and youth are even more important than “programs,” and the most effective churches engage in ministries with children and youth—and their parents.
2. Small groups. The Call reports that more vital churches have more small groups than do less vital churches. This represents a significant step toward reclaiming classical Methodism, but it stops short of involving all members in small groups, and it falls short of the reality that early Methodist societies were de facto churches of small groups. The report neglects to specify what should happen in a church’s small groups; we are not likely to improve on early Methodism’s agenda of (a) helping one another to live as Christians, and (b) engaging in ministry with each other, and with seekers.
3. Lay leadership. The report calls churches to elevate more attendees into leadership roles. The Call is not at all clear that, by this, they mean deploying lay people in ministries. If they do not, their point is only a small step toward a restored Methodism. The early Methodist societies in England, and the early Methodist churches in the United States, were indeed substantially lay led, but this piece is much less important than the point that most of the ministry that mattered was done by laity. In any case, in most churches across this land, the line of attendees who are eager to serve on committees or to get involved in church governance is a short line. Actually, many of the most effective churches are getting lay people out of governance, almost entirely, and into an astonishing range of ministries—in and beyond the church.
4. Worship. The report calls for a mix of traditional and contemporary services in United Methodist churches. That recommendation would have represented progress in the 1970s! Today, the future of worshipping congregations is much more extravagant—including multiple congregations, in multiple styles, sometimes in multiple languages, sometimes at multiple sites.
The committee also calls for more “topical” preaching rather than “lectionary-based preaching.” In several decades of studying churches, I have found negligible warrant for that recommendation—unless we are only talking about beginning a sermon with the question, need, or issue that the text speaks to. Most of our people expect, from their preachers, the meaningful interpretation of the Scriptures. Most of our visitors want to understand the biblical faith. As a postscript, the most effective churches do not put all of their dozen eggs in the preaching basket. Much of the Message is, increasingly, communicated in worship through music, drama, media, and the arts—and, beyond the worship hour, through the people’s reading and conversations.
5. The pastorate. The Call’s final set of recommendations focuses on the pastor. It calls, at last, for longer pastorates. We have known, at least since the early 1970s, that church growth correlates with longer pastorates. The Call also expects the pastor to provide inspirational preaching and leadership in planning. But one recommendation—that the pastor “mentor” lay leaders—will, in many churches, be met with puzzled expressions. Why? In many churches, there are laypeople who, as leaders, have already achieved more than the pastor will ever achieve. Indeed, it would be presumptuous of many pastors to “mentor” their church’s most accomplished leaders. If, however, it is even more important to deploy lay people in ministries than in governance, that is where the pastor’s coaching and mentoring are indispensable.
Accountability
The Call’s most predominant overall theme is Accountability. That is certainly a prominent theme in Methodism’s DNA, but the Call’s theme is less consistent than it could be. For instance, it proposes that underachieving pastors can be “terminated” and underachieving bishops can be “sanctioned.” But why can’t underachieving pastors be sanctioned as a first intervention; and why can’t underachieving bishops be terminated?
Furthermore, the call to accountability is more limited in its scope than it could be. Pastors, bishops, and agencies are on the radar screen. The whole system—schools, colleges, universities, seminaries, hospitals, etc.—should contribute to effective local Christianity.
Objectively studied, what we call the United Methodist Church is neither very “Methodist” nor very “united.” If you doubt that, consider this question: What else keeps the denomination technically together besides the Three ‘P’s: Polity, Property, and Pensions? What primarily kept the early Methodist movement together, even more, was their shared mission and message, and their mutual support and networking. The mere addition of greater accountability is unlikely to provide enough glue for any meaningful unity, nor enough energy to turn the ship around.
The Great Omissions
The Call to Action acknowledges that it is an incomplete plan for the denomination’s renewal. As I studied the document, I became aware of some “great omissions.” Let me point out a few.
1. You would never know, from the Call to Action, that revitalization could have anything to do with theology, or that there could possibly be anything sub-Christian, dysfunctional, heretical, or eccentric about anyone’s theology. But there is a very strong connection between theology and vitality. Some churches are so theologically compromised that they are incapable of reproduction; they cannot even keep a bare majority of their own children into adult membership.
2. You would never know, from the Call to Action, that revitalization could have anything to do with the serious Spiritual Formation of the people. Revitalization without prayer?
3. You would never know, from the Call to Action, that revitalization could have anything to do with obeying and joining the Holy Spirit in Evangelism. Revitalization without new disciples?
4. While the committee is clear about the reforms they’d propose for boards and agencies, the Call does not address the institutions of the episcopacy, or the district superintendency, or the inherited system for deploying the clergy. In Send Me? The Itineracy In Crisis, Don Messer sounded the alarm 20 years ago. Its insights were ignored, but never refuted. Many Methodist churches, worldwide, no longer appoint pastors, and they regard American Methodism’s devotion to the system as “quaint.” Some World Methodism leaders even wonder if we are “polity fundamentalists.”
5. The committee ignores the elephant in the room: the issue of whether our hierarchical organization is still appropriate. One of the most dominant trends of our time is away from authoritarian hierarchical organizations toward much greater local autonomy and control. An increasing number of the people who leave us no longer wanted to be involved in a large top-down structure; they leave for churches that are more autonomous. For similar reasons, we lose an increasing number of our entrepreneurial pastors to churches with greater local autonomy. Should the committee address the most fundamental issue about our structure?
Vitality revisited
The Call to Action reflects the quiet, but enormous, shift in focus that United Methodism experienced in the 20th century. Once, we knew that the world was our parish; now, our parishes are our world! We are now concerned that so many of our parishes lack sufficient “vitality.”
First, “vitality” is a desirable, but not sufficient, goal for the Body of Christ. The quest for vitality reflects what is already a domesticated version of Christianity. Christianity with the power to reach communities, and rescue the perishing, and advance justice, and produce people who devote their lives to the will of God, has more going for it than a good pastoral leader, small groups, good programs, and two worship styles.
The second problem with the goal of “vitality” is that you may not find it by seeking it. You experience it as a by-product of experiencing grace, and following Jesus Christ, and as new disciples enter the church’s ranks as transformed people.
Churches experience vitality as they become involved in the Christian Movement far beyond their community—as they support missionaries and as teams of church members join the missionaries in, say, a three-week mission trip to a village in Peru where they put a roof on a chapel during the day and join in community with the indigenous believers in the evenings. When they return to their local congregations, their newfound spiritual power is contagious.
Success and failure
While we were told what the “drivers” were for high vitality congregations, we were not told about the causes of “low vitality” in too many of our churches.
Let me presume to offer a diagnosis of these factors. Modern day United Methodists cannot recall who they are. They are no longer rooted in Scripture or in any recognizable version of Methodism’s theological vision. The religion that now inhabits the minds of our attendees is as likely to be Deism, or Pantheism, or middle class moralism, or civil religion, or even Astrology or “Luck,” as any recognizable form of “the faith once delivered to the saints.”
Most of our people who dutifully attend church are like a football team that sits on the bench while supporting, and cheering for, the coach—or they wish for a better coach! Most of our people are not in ministry within and beyond the church. Most of our churches do not regard Christianity’s mission as their main business. Most of our visitors do not hear our churches speak their language or engage their emotional struggles. Many visitors, who know they are not like “good church people,” read signals that we may not really want them.
The consequence of all of this, and more, is what John Wesley once feared. What is now called Methodism, in many places, has retained “the form of religion,” but “without the power.”
Unfortunately, the Call to Action proposal assumes that establishment, institutional, mainline, more-or-less Eurocentric Christianity is normal Christianity. Again, the Call seems to be unaware that Methodism once expressed serious, contagious, missional Christianity, locally and globally.
The main problem that I have with the committee’s Call is that, if it succeeds, the denomination might reduce the hemorrhaging, membership and attendance and finances might stabilize, and the denomination’s executives might feel less heat. Unfortunately, however, if the Call, in its present form, is implemented at every level, the most optimistic possible outcome would still find United Methodism thin on vision, passion, and courage. We still would not represent a version of the faith that could change the world.
George G. Hunter III is Distinguished Professor of Evangelism and Church Growth at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. He was the founding dean of the E. Stanley Jones School of World Mission and Evangelism. Dr. Hunter has authored a dozen books, including The Apostolic Congregation: Church Growth Reconceived for a New Generation (2009).
by Steve | Apr 1, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Kathleen LaCamera
In an age when a hand-written letter is an increasingly scarce commodity, British Methodists have pledged to transcribe all 66 books of the Bible by hand during the first five months of this year.
The “Written by Hand, Taken to Heart” national initiative is part of the denomination’s recognition of the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible. One of the world’s best-selling books of all time, this translation was first published in 1611, at the request of England’s King James I.
Each of England’s Methodist districts—roughly equivalent to U.S. annual conferences—will transcribe 25 Old Testament chapters, five Psalms and eight New Testament chapters. The completed transcribed Bible will be presented at the 2011 British Methodist Conference in June.
Jenny Ellis, the church’s Connectional Spirituality and Discipleship Officer, said most of the work is occurring out in the community in “scriptoriums” set up in shopping centers, schools, nursing homes, universities, and other public spaces.
“We want this to be a public expression of the church valuing scripture,” said Ellis. “And we want to be as creative as possible.” In addition to the opportunity to contribute handwritten verses, participants may also be invited to create illustrations to go alongside them.
The hope is that people of all ages who are unfamiliar with the Bible, as well as those who know it well, will come into these mobile scriptoriums and encounter the Bible’s stories, poetry, and teachings in a new way.
On January 9, the UK’s national publicly funded broadcaster, the BBC, devoted more than seven hours of national airtime throughout the day to readings from the Scripture. Sections from throughout the Bible were introduced by scholars and commentators, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, and read by top British actors.
Christine Morgan, Methodist lay preacher and head of radio for the BBC’s Religion & Ethics department, reports the feedback from audiences—both religious and not—has been overwhelmingly positive.
“We even had one atheist get in touch to say that he enjoyed the programming so much he was now prepared to become an agnostic,” Morgan reported.
The Rev. Rob Cotton, a Methodist minister and the British Bible Society’s senior campaign manager, noted that the Bible is deeply relevant to people’s ordinary lives. “The Bible talks about human emotion, loss, jealousy, love,” said Cotton. “It’s not just something we learn theology from, important as that is; it actually affects the way we do life.”
He believes taking part in the handwritten Bible can be almost a meditative exercise that helps people experience the scriptures in a deeper way. To illustrate, Cotton recounted the true story of a man who walked in off the street to one of the Bible Society’s scriptoriums and ended up transcribing by hand the story of the Prodigal Son.
Cotton described how the man wrote little comments in the margins and left a contact address. When the Bible Society tried to follow up, people at the address said “there was some mistake and that the person couldn’t have possibly been their relative because he had left the family and had recently died.”
In fact there was no mistake. The family was sent the pages the man had transcribed with his personal notes. Cotton says they found comfort in the realization that before his death he had found a measure of peace in the story of the Prodigal Son.
“Here is a book that speaks about the very stuff of life,” said Cotton. ”Whatever we (Christians) do every day, we should do through the lens of scripture. That’s who we are.”
Kathleen LaCamera is a freelance journalist who also works as a hospital and mental health chaplain in Britain’s national health service. Distributed by United Methodist News Service.
